Being reasonably familiar with the TV series will certainly let a viewer pick up nuances that went over my head, and I'm sure over many others, but you don't have to be a Simpsons addict to appreciate the delights of Mr. Burns. It sizzles.

The suggestions of migrants from the developing world swamping borders of the EU and USA have a very determinist view of the future. These predictions do not appreciate the huge complexity of future climate change and the even larger complexity of humans.

Are you ready for the zombie apocalypse? You had better be. AMC's The Walking Dead is one of the most popular programmes in cable TV history, and it kicks off a new series Sunday night. And it's pretty educational.

While the idea of believers being "caught up in the air" is mentioned, it is metaphorically describing the Second Coming. Paul is not claiming, nor even implying that Christians will disappear before all hell breaks loose on earth. In fact, the very idea of the rapture is antithetical to the narrative of scripture.

As the morbid and jaded creatures we are, humans really get a kick out of pondering our species' ultimate demise. It's time we give some love to more obscure, but still scientifically plausible means of extinction.

Once Dominion premieres on Thursday, audiences will have a better idea as to what a day's work looks like for the show's superstar seraphim. But if these heavenly hellraisers opt for a machine gun over a harp, at least they're just following order.

BUDAPEST - When it comes to geopolitics, there is always a market for gloom. Business has been booming in this respect lately, with The Economist, Foreign Affairs, and many less exalted journals full of claims that the global order is crumbling, America's ability (and willingness) to save it is in terminal decline, and the prospect of avoiding major conflict in the decade ahead is illusory. Plenty of recent events -- along with the ghosts of 1914 and 1939 -- have boosted the reputations, royalties, and revenues of today's doomsayers. There is Russia's adventurism in Ukraine; China's territorial assertiveness -- and Japan's new push-back nationalism -- in East Asia; continuing catastrophe in Syria and disarray in the wider Middle East; the resurgence of atrocity crimes in South Sudan, Nigeria, and elsewhere in Africa; and anxiety about renewed communal strife in India after Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi's stunning election victory. But, though global political conditions are hardly as good as they could be -- they never are -- there are plenty of grounds for thinking that they are not nearly as bad as so many are claiming. Here are the five most important reasons not to lose as much sleep as some pundits say you should.

Each brush with an online dating site, whether for real or for research, felt like a brush with a comb vigorously teasing my hair the wrong way. Nails on a chalkboard. Every last thing about it either repelled me or felt impossible.

After posing for cameras, Moby mingled with the growing crowd. I pulled out my recorder and inquired if I could ask him a question or two. "Sure," he said. "Why don't we go in the back and talk?" And just like that, I was in a small, darkened storage space with the global superstar of electronic music.